Pathfinder Society in Spain!

Monday, January 16, 2017

We are already halfway through the month. Doesn't seem like time should fly so fast! Before you know it, PaizoCon 2017 will be upon us. This is a big year, as it is the 10th anniversary of PaizoCon. Putting together the PFS schedule, along with that at Gen Con, and am extremely enthusiastic about what the team has in store for the second part of Season of Plundered Tombs and Year of the Stolen Storm.

But this week isn't about conventions. Well, not ones coming up. Instead, I asked our Venture-Officers in Spain to write about their activities for the past year. When I joined the PFS team as OPC, we had two Venture-Captains, one in Barcelona and one in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and three Venture-Lieutenants throughout the country. The current Venture-Captain of Madrid, Tesifonte Negro Gonzalez, joined shortly after as one of two Venture-Agents. The team in Spain now numbers 4 Venture-Captains (Leon, Barcelona, Madrid, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), 12 Venture-Lieutenants, and 7 Venture-Agents. They went from 2 tables a month to a recent event with 20+ tables of the special #8-00 The Cosmic Captive. But enough of statistics, time to hear from the Spaniards!

Spain Keeps on Rolling—Higher and Higher Numbers

Madrid

It all started long ago. A steady group of GMs leaded by Miguel Madrid, Eric Barroso, Francisco "Nagash", Miguel "Puck" and Pedro Moreno gathered every four weeks in order to brighten the weekends for our pathfinders.

At the beginning, Miguel Madrid organized everything: gathered up the GMs, created a blog that everyone can visit, talked to different retailers in order to have a place to have fun.

Many people recognized his hard labor, and decided to join him: first, Eric Barroso, who became his second in command and then Tesi Negro (who recently became Venture Captain). They decided to increase the numbers by visiting retailers and offering initiation games to whoever wanted to come.

People flocked to them of all ages, young and not so young, students and workers, people who were more or less familiar with the system or roleplaying games and wanted to explore Golarion for the first time. After seven "initiations", the number of stable players doubled, and so did the number of GMs.

We had to seek a bigger place in order to accommodate all the explorers, and we found our "Grand Lodge" in Goblin Trader Madrid Norte, a retailer that so far has treated us like queens and kings.

Sometimes, people from smaller lodges (León, Miranda, Bizkaia) come to Madrid and join us, or vice versa, which is a great success, given the distances.

We are now planning to create a group in Complutense University, called the 'Rolativity', to spread the words and bring us more new blood. We are still figuring out how we will manage, and if our captain and officers have really gone mad, but one thing is certain: we will keep raising the numbers and having fun, because heterogeneity is one of the things that define Spain!

Barcelona

Barcelona has recently held the DAU a huge event that involved plenty of resources and energies from Gustavo Cruz's crew. León sent its VC, Mario Grande (first right, next picture) and also by adding more tables to the event in Barcelona via HANGOUTS. Madrid decided they were no less than those northerners and sent their VC too, Tesi Negro (second right), in a gathering that would have the three captains (Gus is the man in the mid!).

All the time and effort were worth it and the DAU were a complete success. The event held the multi-table adventure The Cosmic Captive during Saturday and several other adventures during Sunday. It was a blast.

In the upcoming weeks León and Madrid will hold another event, by the end of January.

León

León has also experienced a huge rise on numbers: given the fact its population rounds 130k souls, people flock to roll dice and live adventures with Mario and his GM's.

(Leon is so busy, VC Mario didn't have time to send me words to include!

In my own name, and in the name of all GMs and players from Spain: thanks!

Thanks to Dave (RVC), Tonya, Compton... And also to Devir (Spanish publisher) for their support, and many others volunteers and GMs (without VO rank), like the webs of Fosfoman (Rol Royce), Huumusa (Dragona das Varias)... The pioneers GMs of PFS in the PbP web www.comunidadumbria.com (like Puck, Modron, ...), several VOs like Fran from Miranda de Ebro, translating handouts...

And, at León, thanks to the players, a very funny group, and the GMs (specially to those that make reality multitables, Alfonso, Daniel y Nani). We are growing beyond my expectatives... And It is very exciting!

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